Joseph Rowntree Foundation: state of the nation poverty report

A new report was published yesterday by Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has been produced in-house by Helen Barnard of the JRF Analysis Unit. It examines poverty rates in the UK, and changes to figures over the past two decades.

Emma Stone of JRF delivered a keynote on their solve poverty strategy at the MALG Conference last month to get delegates thinking about what they and their organisations are doing to address this big problem.

Read more below:

UK Poverty 2017 highlights that overall, 14 million people live in poverty in the UK – over one in five of the population. This is made up of eight million working-age adults, four million children and 1.9 million pensioners. 8 million live in families where at least one person is in work.

Over the last 20 years, the UK has dramatically reduced poverty among people who had traditionally been most at risk – pensioners and certain types of families with children. But that progress is beginning to unravel; poverty rates for both groups have started to rise again.

The analysis highlights that the three factors which have led to a fall in poverty and are now under question; state support for many of those on low incomes is falling in real terms, rents are increasing, and rising employment is no longer reducing poverty. As a result, JRF is calling for a national mission to transform the prospects of millions of people living in poverty in the UK.

This is the first report to assess the progress the UK is making in reducing poverty rates and tackling the underlying drivers of poverty since the publication of JRF’s We Can Solve Poverty in the UK in 2016.